It’s bad enough waiting for the season to begin up here while watching match reports roll in from Florida, Texas, AriZONa, California beginning in January, then have to contend with weather (will it or won’t it?) once OUR match season approaches. THEN one typically has to choose between WHICH match to shoot on any given weekend, as there’s frequently more than one within reach.

Such was the case last weekend, at least for prone shooters: Gopher Rifle & Revolver Club’s esteemed (and kinda rare this side of the pond) Fullbore weekend? Or Winnequah Gun Club’s NRA Long Range Regional. We won’t speak of across-the-course just yet, ‘ cause that just adds to the complexity of choosing.

I’d planned to shoot a prone 1600 in Illinois the Saturday before last, followed by a 4x600 at Milan Rifle Club on my way home. Weather put the slam on that, so Plan B was to shoot Eau Claire’s 4x600 Saturday as the foul weekend weather looked to stay to the south of us up this way. Something I’d et earlier in the week proved my undoing though, I spent Saturday at home looking forward to the weekend just concluded.

I seriously like Fullbore, and given more time I would have chosen to attend GRRC’s event but instead opted for the (closer, shorter) two-day Regional at Winnequah Gun Club. Always exciting when the fuse gets touched off on Earl’s black powder cannon for the match opening:

Weather was superb, even if a bit on the cooler side (at least it didn’t snow!). Wind - this is Winnequah remember - was ever-present… both days. Saturday had it at 10 with gusts to 23 mph from the North so full-value from start to the end was the rule of the day. Several shooters witnessed 8-to-8 changes in an eye blink, fewer kept up wth ‘em thus avoiding loosing too many points. Scott Liebetrau fired 443-15 to end up on top of the sling shooters group, Bob Mead an outstanding 443-22X in F-Open. I somehow managed 440-15X for 2nd barely ahead of Randy Gregory’s 439-23X. F-Open James Bauer with his 439-18X kept Bob on edge I suspect. Bob Churchill topped Master/Expert with his 432-14X, a point ahead of Mike Ciecko with 431-11X. Neil Leppla and Jeff Dick battled it out in F-Open, Neil gaining a single X farther to come out ahead at the end, 440-17X to 440-16X.

Following the Palma course of fire was a 20-round, 1,000 yard match. By this time though the sun had moved behind the targets making open sight shooting a real challenge: putting round bullets onto a square target’s easy enough when you can SEE the aiming black to keep ‘em centered… or so it’s said!

Luck was on my side (using a frame hold sure helped!) for my string, giving me 191-6X, generous enough to claim 1st over Randy Gregory’s 191-3X. F-Open Bob Mead again took 1st with his 193-7X, the other Bob (Sebold) 2nd w/ same score but shy 3-X’s.

Sunday dawned bright but cool again while wind was moving off to the west just a tad and maybe a little less velocity as well? But that makes it even tougher to read coming round that mountain that serves as a backstop! Saturday you could read certain flags pretty well (mirage was iffy) but Sunday all bets were off for what to watch out for. Lighter winds, variable from 0 to maybe 8-10 but turbulent down range… nothing could be trusted from moment to moment! Kevin Liebetrau lining up a shot:

Once all the flags were folded & stored & targets refaced, the awards ceremonies began. Rather than reiterate what’s in the pics I took of the various posted standings I’ll let you read it for yourself: